476 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1720. 



long to another, and did not on the appearance of one or two signs, determine 

 the person to be a lazar; and this I find to be the case of the wife of John 

 Nightingale, Esq. of Burntwood in Essex, who in the reign of Edward the 

 4th, Anno 1468, being reported to be a lazar, and that she conversed with 

 persons in public and private places, and did not, according to custom, retire 

 herself, but refused so to do, was accordingly examined by William HatteclifF, 

 Roger Marcall, and Dominicus de Serego, the king's physicians ; but they, 

 upon strict inquiry, adjudged her not to be leprous, by reason the appearances 

 of the disease were not sufficient. Some of the questions put to the leprous 

 persons, as they called them, which will more fully confirm what I have before 

 advanced, I shall now give as I transcribed them from an ancient book of sur- 

 gery, as follows: " yf there were any of his lygnage that he knew to be lazares, 

 and especially their faders and moders; for by any other of their kynred they 

 ought not to be lazares, then ought ye to enquire yf he hath had the company 

 of any lepress woman, and if any lazare had medled with her afore him ; and 

 lately because of the infect matter and contagyous filth that she had received of 

 him. Also his nostrills be wyde outward, narrow within and gnawn. Also yf 

 his lips and gummes are foul stynking and coroded. Also yf his voice be 

 horse, and as he speaketh in the nose." Now the signs here mentioned were 

 accounted univocal, and which made the examiners principally determine the 

 persons to be leprous; but what determinations any one would immediately give 

 from such symptoms now, no person is surely ignorant of. But even these 

 certain appearances would not always satisfy some persons, if we may believe 

 Faelix Platerus, in his .Medicinal and Surgical Observations, lib. 3, who tells 

 us, that some did not account them to be so, till they had a horrible aspect, 

 were hoarse, and noses fell. Likewise in the Examen Leprosorum, printed in 

 the De Chirurgia Scriptores Optimi, the author, speaking of the signs of the 

 leprosy relating to the nose, begins thus, " Si nares exterius secundum exteri- 

 orem partem ingrossentur, et interius constringantur, et coarctentur. Secundo 

 si appereat cartilaginis in medio corrosio, et casus ejus significat lepram incura- 

 bilem." And the above-mentioned John Gadisden, in his chapter de Lepra, 

 says as follows: " Signa confirmationis etiam incurabiliter sunt corrosio cartila- 

 ginis quae est inter foramina et casus ejusdem." 



Thus I have proved, that we had a distemper among us some centuries be- 

 fore the venereal disease is said to have been known in Europe, which was 

 called the burning; that this burning was infectious, and that it was the first 

 degree of the venereal disease; that this being common at that time, from their 

 method of treatment, the pox must be unavoidable; that it had exactly the 

 same appearances it has now, though they were generally called by diiferent 



